


Places to Rest

by newisalwaysbetter



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Blood, Child in Peril, F/M, Flynn is a good dad, Implied Violence, Present-Day Bonding, Promises, Time Travel, meeting your lover as a child, pure and wholesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24576895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newisalwaysbetter/pseuds/newisalwaysbetter
Summary: Prompt: "If you ever would like to write something where the team goes back and ends up meeting a 5 year old-ish Lucy I would be over the moon excited. Especially if it involves Flynn being wrapped around this tiny girl's finger."Title taken from the song by the same name by Garfunkel and Oates.
Relationships: Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49





	Places to Rest

This is the _cutest_ request I’ve gotten in a while so I literally put everything else off to get it written!! I hope it’s everything you want my friend :) 

Set late S2/S3, pre-garcy, with warnings for blood, death mentions, and implications of a child in peril (but no harm or threat shown).

————————-

Flynn hides from their tiny charge as long as he can, but when the alarm on his smartwatch tells him it’s time to change the guard, he reluctantly leaves his position at the window and heads for the dining room, where Jiya is keeping an eye on the Lucy of 1988. 

The two young women sit across from each other at the dining room table, both sipping sugar water out of plastic teacups, both apparently oblivious to the dried blood caking their clothes, their hair, the walls. The sight hits Flynn like a bolt of lightning, and it takes a moment to remind himself that none of it is theirs. Lucy had patiently submitted to their medical check after walking in on them gunning down Rittenhouse agents in her kitchen, and now here she sits, among the bloodstained towels Jiya had tried to use to clean her, impossibly quiet and dignified. 

Without a booster seat, Lucy is nearly too short to see over the table. She is also, as far as Flynn can tell, no more than five years old.

Flynn scrubs a hand over his exhausted eyes. “Jiya. What are you doing?”

“Having a tea party,” Jiya says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Duh.”

“Not what I meant,” Flynn snarls, stalking forwards. Lucy’s brown eyes flash to him, widening, and Flynn comes up short as though he’d been yanked on a leash. 

After a moment of his jaw working, Flynn beckons Jiya to him. This is why he’d wanted to avoid Lucy in the first place; he’s wild-eyed and murderous, and he’d known he’d scare her.

When Jiya joins him in the doorway, Flynn hisses, “You couldn’t have taken her somewhere with less blood?”

“What? Look at her.” Jiya gestures to the little girl calmly sipping fake tea. “She _saw_ us shoot those agents; taking her to another room isn’t going to convince her it didn’t happen.” Jiya’s speaking with more fire than strictly necessary, and Flynn is suddenly reminded how much she knows of death. “Besides, we both know this is the safest room in the house.”

Flynn gives Jiya his most frigid stare, but Jiya just cocks one eyebrow and stares back in a way that says, _You really wanna fight over this?_

“I mean, you can move her if you want.” Jiya shrugs as she walks past him into the front room. “It’s my turn on watch anyway.”

“ _No,_ ” Flynn hisses after her. “Jiya, I can’t do this, get back here–” but she just wiggles her fingers at him over her shoulder, and is gone.

“Are you a good guy?”

Flynn turns abruptly to find the child at the table observing him frankly, with sharp brown eyes familiar enough to take his breath away. 

Just as the question does.

After a long moment, Flynn crosses to the dining table and kneels down beside her. “I don’t know.” He’s always distinctly aware that he’s larger than Lucy, but this is something entirely different–awful personal experience has made him far too aware of the fragility of children, and this is not just any child. “But I promise I’ll never hurt you, Lucy.”

“Jiya said that too.” When she shakes her head, the resemblance is uncanny. “But the bad guys wanted to hurt me. Right?”

“Right, but I stopped them. You saw that,” Flynn insists, “and you’re safe. You know that?”

Lucy looks to the bloodstained walls and says simply, “No.”

“Well.” Flynn stares back at her for a long second, his heart breaking behind the scarred mask. Then he reaches out for her, and without hesitation, Lucy scrambles up his body to wrap her arms around his neck. “We can’t have that.”

Flynn is half-afraid of stepping on her while he gathers the necessary supplies, so he puts Lucy in the safest place he can think of: on top of the fridge. Flynn also sets a new rule: every time he comes back into the kitchen, Lucy is allowed to ask him another question.

“What’s your name?”

“Flynn.”

“How do you know _my_ name?”

Flynn swallows, his brain short-circuiting as he seeks a proper answer. “I read it in a book.”

“Like a history book?”

“More like a future book.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Lucy says frankly. “Can I have a juice box?”

Flynn tugs affectionately at her foot as he heads to the cupboard. “You’re the boss.”

“Is that a real gun?”

“Yes. Very dangerous.” Flynn’s trying not to give away too much, but when he spares a glance up at her, those dark eyes pierce him to the core. “Fires real bullets, too.”

“Yeah, I know,” she says softly, and Flynn curses himself. Lucy’s bare feet swing against the freezer door, and on an instinct Flynn crosses to cup them in his hands.

“Want socks?” 

Lucy nods. “My room is upstairs,” she adds as he’s walking away. “The big one with the yellow walls.”

Flynn pauses, holding up one finger. “I will be back in one minute,” he promises.

The last time Flynn had made a promise to a little girl, he’d been unable to keep it, so he endeavors to hold to this one, but the sight of Lucy’s childhood bedroom brings him up shor. It’s too big, and immaculately clean. The little bed in the corner, Flynn thinks, should have a twin. There should be two dressers, two nightstands. That closet should be twice as full.

Lucy reaches out a small hand when he returns with the socks. “I can do it.”

Flynn takes a deep breath. He shouldn’t say this, but. “One thing you will learn, when you are _much_ older…” he unrolls the socks. “Is that it is all right to ask for help, Lucy.”

Lucy considers that for a second, but her serious stare is interrupted by a wide yawn. Flynn shakes his head. “Big yawn for someone so small…”

“’M not small.” Lucy offers her feet, and Flynn starts rolling on her socks. “I’m the biggest.” She leans forward to put a hand on Flynn’s head, showing the height difference from where she’s sitting. “That’s why you said I’m the boss.”

Flynn’s lips twist as he suppresses a smile. “You need to remember that, Lucy.” He’s unable to stop himself from touching her nose, and Lucy smiles, just barely. “Remember that you’re the boss.”

“I’m the boss,” Lucy whispers to herself, again and again. “ _I’m_ the boss.”

“Now it’s my turn to ask you a question.” Flynn lifts her down from the fridge, and Lucy wraps her arms around his neck as he carries her to the pile of blankets and pillows on the dining room table. He sets her down next to the table, and without instructions, they get to work. 

Flynn tries to keep his voice steady when he asks, “Why are you alone?”

“Mommy works late sometimes.”

“And your dad?”

Lucy looks up from where she’s draping a blanket over the table. Her eyes are very bright. “He didn’t want us.”

 _Henry Wallace wanted you,_ Flynn wants to say, but that’s not true any more. His fault, like the rest of it. His jaw tightens alongside the ache in his heart, and to cover it, he kneels down beside Lucy and ruffles her hair. “Then how’d you know how to make such a good pillow fort, mm?”

They crawl inside under the table, inside the fort. It’s a little too small for Flynn, so he ends up lying half-on his back, his long legs stretched out from under the table. He can’t hold back a chuckle when Lucy scales his torso to perch on his shoulders. She’s already too used to this.

“Can you be my dad?” she asks, when they’ve settled in completely.

Flynn holds her feet in his hands, warming them through her socks. “No, Lucy.”

“Why not?”

Flynn hopes his eyes don’t betray anything. “Because I have to be that for someone else.”

“For Jiya?”

He smiles involuntarily, at that. “No, someone else.”

“She’s lucky.”

Flynn doesn’t have anything to say to that.

When Jiya comes to check on them nearly an hour later, she finds Flynn propped up inside the makeshift pillow fort, snoring softly. Lucy sits on Flynn’s shoulders, one leg on either side of his neck and wrapped around his head from behind. She’s resting her folded arms atop Flynn’s head, and there’s a case’s worth of empty juice boxes scattered around them. Lucy appears to be asleep atop Flynn, and Jiya is half-tempted to snap a picture, when Lucy’s dark eyes snap open and she whispers, “Hi.”

Jiya smiles and crawls into the fort. “You like to be tall, huh?”

“ _Yes._ ” Lucy’s eyes shine in the darkness. “I’m the boss.”

“Damn straight,” Jiya whispers, then her eyes widen and she covers her mouth. “Um. You didn’t hear that.”

Lucy yawns, one small hand politely covering her mouth. “Are you gonna wake up Flynn now?”

“Nah.” Flynn’s hair is coming loose from its usual coif, and Jiya is tempted to push it back into place, but she knows from experience how quickly that sleep-slack face can harden into anger. Instead, she strokes Lucy’s soft hair as the little girl’s eyes flutter closed. It’s warm and dark and soft in here, and she’s determined to let these two stay this way a little longer.

It’s almost eight hours later, long after the _Lifeboat_ has touched back down in 2019, long after the bunker has fallen into lonely silence, that Flynn hears the knock.

Lucy’s eyes widen when he opens the door, and Flynn realizes that he hasn’t taken the time to wash the blood off himself.

He waves off her concern, although it’s comforting, in a way. “Before you say anything, just come in.”

There’s a basin in the corner that Flynn uses to shave, when he can’t summon the effort to walk down the hall to the bathroom. He shuts the door behind Lucy and turns to find her coming at him with a wet washcloth. “Hold still.”

“You’re the boss,” Flynn says, on instinct. 

He isn’t sure if he imagines her breath catch at that.

Normally Flynn would have occupied the chair while Lucy took the bed, but tonight she drags him over to sit next to her on the bed. Something’s different, Flynn knows, but there’s no way to know what.

“We’re going to get your sister back, Lucy.”

She gives him a funny look, strange and soft. Flynn hopes she won’t cry, because he might, too. “I know we will.” She nods jerkily. “I know, but…why?”

Flynn just stares at her, unable to find the words to describe that serious little girl waiting for her family all alone in that big, empty house. Instead, he clears his throat noisily and reaches into his pocket. “Before I forget.”

“A juice box?” Lucy’s nose crinkles.

“Apple grape.” Flynn regards her with knowing eyes. “Your favorite.”

“They told me it was a dream.” Lucy shakes her head, and it’s all too familiar. “But I remembered.” She looks up at him, tears rising to her eyes, and whispers through her teeth, the joy breaking through, “I _remembered._ ”

“Now you know how I feel,” Flynn says softly, and Lucy leans her head on his shoulder as the tears start to come. “And you know you’re safe with me now. Right?”

“I know. I know.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Fanart] Little!Lucy & Flynn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19036195) by [UnUnpredictableMe (DraejonSoul)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DraejonSoul/pseuds/UnUnpredictableMe)




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